Cape Town Pelagics guide Dalton Gibbs
is assisting with invasive plant control at the world's
most remote inhabited piece of land: Gough Island. Join
in and read his exciting accounts on this unique ecosystem...

Gough Island didn’t so much as start and appear on the horizon
as I imagined it would, but rather rose out of the Atlantic
Ocean like some new land mass thrust up in front of our
ship as it appeared through the mist. The ship is the SA
Agulhas, which is visiting Gough Island to resupply the
weather station and drop off the relief crew for the coming
year. Said to be the world's most
remote permanently inhabitant piece of land, the
South African weather and research station has a staff compliment
of 8 who are self sufficient for a year. I am here to assist
with efforts to control an
invasive plant species that could threaten
much of the islands plant communities.

Gough Island is 6400ha; measuring some 13km
by 5km, which may sound large, but is an insignificant
speck within the vast southern ocean that surrounds us.
It is part of the United Kingdoms’ Overseas Territories,
with South Africa operating its weather station under agreement
with the Tristan Island Government. The weather changes
abruptly here, with low pressure weather systems carried
on the westerly winds that blow almost constantly. A whooping
3500 mm of rain falls each
year, creating a green island with
vegetation stunted by the wind. Highest plants are
the Phylica trees (Phylica arborea) growing to
a maximum of 2m; with an extensive covering of moss and
old mans beard lichens they look all the world like props
from some exotic movie which involves a teenage camera crew,
a shaky home camera and a haunted forest … Miniature tree
ferns (Blechnum palmiforme) are beautifully proportioned
as small versions of tree ferns that are so popular as garden
plants. Various sedges and ferns fill in the bits in between,
creating a vegetation community that is up to waist height
in most places on the coastal plain and gets shorter as
one approaches the 910m summit.

Sea birds start arriving from the end of winter, with an
estimated 2 million birds using this
as their breeding ground. At the moment there are
Sooty Albatross in their dozens, hovering
above the steep sea cliffs as they effortlessly ride the
up draughts of wind. Their constant “aaargh” cries sound
like something between a respectable bird contact call and
the cries of a person in distress. Of course they are calling
to the birds that have begun to complete their nests on
narrow inaccessible cliffs. There they hunker down against
the wind, rising every now and then to call back to a bird
that presumably has some connection to them. They sky point
and clatter their bill in return and get back to the serious
business of heaping mud and grass onto their beautifully
constructed nest mounds or hunkering down against the next
gust of wind. When a mate lands next to them, a stamping
foot dance occurs; with birds alternatively lifting large
their huge padded feet and bill fencing.

The huge Tristan Albatross (Wandering)
are seen out to sea, seldom close to shore and flying to
the top of the mountain, where some 1900 nests are on the
island this year. This is one the species hardest
hit by long line fishing and other fishing practices
and sadly now endangered, being
restricted to the breed in the Tristan Island group of Gough,
Tristan, Nightingale and Inaccessible Island.

Atlantic Yellow-nosed Albatross, the
smallest of the world’s albatross fly in and make
nest mounds along the coastal plains, often the Phylica
trees where they look out of place with their large clumsy
feet. They stand out as white dots scattered across the
coastal plain as they sit on their nests. They allow approach
right up to the nest, standing up to call to other birds
with a bill clicking, sky pointing and a call that sounds
somewhat like an energetic Clicking Stream Frog. During
these displays they reveal a deep orange stripe of skin
that extends from their gap along the sides of their head.
This flushes with their display and then disappears into
their feathers as if it was never there. Occasionally one
finds a pair on these nests, with the birds appearing besotted
on one another, bill touching and fencing with calls. The
first eggs for this season were laid three days ago and
we are hoping for a bumper crop.

Every now and then a screech goes up from the Sub-antarctic
Skuas, who have spread themselves out across the
island and defend the centre of their territory. Any Skua
flying over gets the full treatment of the male and female
screaming a warning with raised wings. Another group of
20 or so of these birds sit dejectedly around the helicopter
landing pad; these are the bachelors
who seem to do less fighting when it suites them. Northern
Rockhopper Penguins line the shore in big breeding
colonies where the cliffs are not too steep, venturing some
200 m from the sea. Here they mix with Sub-antarctic
Fur Seals who have come ashore to pup.

Because of the predatory Skua’s, most of the breeding seabirds
wait until nightfall before
venturing onto the island where they excavate burrows or
raise chicks. Soft-plumaged Petrels, Broad-billed
Prions, Atlantic Petrels, Common
Diving Petrels and White-faced Storm Petrels
are the birds around the research station, with Great-winged
and Grey Petrels at different altitudes.
The night is full of bird calls; strange yelps and cries
like packs of hyenas in the distance. Great Shearwaters
are still on their way and are expected in the next few
weeks from their over wintering grounds in the Northern
Hemisphere. One of the staff here is a Canadian scientist
who has satellite tags on birds,
and we often watch their tracks on the internet as they
make their way southward. We are presently discussing a
betting pool for the first bird home!

Gough Island Buntings are an endemic passerine,
occurring in pairs or threes. Like most other birds on the
island they have been heavily impacted by introduced
mice on the island. As a result they are now sadly
restricted to steep cliffs where they are free from predation
by mice. On this island, mice, free of the constraints of
predators have overrun all habitats and prey on seabirds.
Today’s team returning from a Tristan Albatross count once
more have photos of these chicks being eaten by mice. This
was documented some time ago on film and plans are being
drawn up for the eradication
of these rodents from the island.